


Circle on Your Shoulder

by Winner_of_the_disability_bingo



Series: Soulmate September 2020 [10]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Kinda, Platonic Soulmates, So..., Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, hughes is mentioned once, theres also their mum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:35:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26382745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winner_of_the_disability_bingo/pseuds/Winner_of_the_disability_bingo
Summary: Soulmate September Day 10 - You share a mark on your skin with your soulmateBeing soulmates with your brother was easy. Until it wasn't.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric, Implied Riza Hawkeye & Maes Hughes & Roy Mustang
Series: Soulmate September 2020 [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1904476
Comments: 4
Kudos: 71





	Circle on Your Shoulder

The day Alphonse was born had been one of the best in Ed’s life. He didn’t remember it that well, but the emotions of that day remained. The feeling of your soulmate being born is something indescribable. Something almost euphoric. Anyone with a soulmate age-gap would agree.

The mark was on Ed’s right shoulder, and on Al’s left. Their mum said that at first, their dad had mistaken it for a transmutation circle, but when he drew it, nothing had happened. When he left, Ed and Al discovered that he had several journals full of research on their soul-mark, because it couldn’t have been anything but an alchemy symbol. They read through everything, but Hohenheim was just as stumped on it as them.

Their soul-mark was something special. It connected the brothers in a way that was more than blood, more than anything else. It was proof of their alchemy prowess years before they drew their first transmutation circle.

When their mum died, they were especially grateful that their connection let them stay together. Izumi-sensei’s interest in the strange symbol was part of the reason she took them in. If not for their soul-mark, they might never have gotten a proper alchemy teacher. They might never had been given the chance to bring their mum back.

It was Ed’s idea to bring mum back. He had seen their dad’s notes on human-transmutation. They said it was a taboo, but they never mentioned why. Ed didn’t see what the problem was. If they could learn to bring Mum back from the dead, they could bring back everyone who had died before they were ready. Every child that was killed in the war. Ever parent that grew ill. Anyone.

It was possible, they just had to get good enough at alchemy to perform it on their own. No one else could know. They would only try to stop them.

Six months later, they had completed training with Izumi-sensei. They could finally work on bringing mum back.

* * *

Ed had expected it to hurt. Of course it would. You couldn’t just bring someone back to life without repercussions. He did not expect the way his soul felt as if it had torn in half when he watched his brother disappear. He didn’t expect the pain that came from clawing across the dirty floor of their basement. He didn’t expect there to be a giant gate in the middle of nothing guarded by something that claims to be a god.

There was nothing that could have prepared him for the agony that was giving up his soul-mark to get his brother back. The burn that came with diggg his fingers into his stump of a leg and drawing a circle made of blood. The fear when he worried that it wouldn’t work. The despair when he believed he had lost everything.

The blood rune was on Al’s armour, and below it, their soul-mark. It was a reassurance. Al was still there. They still had each other.

* * *

Colonel Mustang came a week later.

Apparently, there had been a mistake in the records and Ed and Al were thought to be ten years older than they actually were. The military needed to work on their information. Mustang was not happy when he realised. He was even less happy when he found out what the two of them had done.

Ed couldn’t quite bring himself to care. Their mum was gone forever, there wasn’t even a chance of getting her back, and the brothers were no longer connected. Ed had searched for a connection, there was none. They weren’t soulmates any more. Just children who committed the greatest sin.

He’d keep fighting of course, he would always keep fighting. It was just that now, he didn’t know what he was fighting for. What his purpose was. He failed to protect Al, what else could he do?

Mustang… he really would not take no for an answer. He gave Ed something to fight for. A way to fix the mistakes they made. He didn’t condemn them for what they did. Instead, he gave Ed hope.

One look at the hawk on Mustang’s neck and the photo frame peeking out from his collar and Ed knew. He would keep fighting for Al. Whatever it took, he would make his brother, his soulmate, happy. They weren’t connected anymore, but that didn’t matter. Connection or not, they still had each other. Always.

Ed really couldn’t refuse.

* * *

They had spent three years in the state military looking for a philosopher’s stone. With no luck. Three years without Al’s body and his limbs. Three years unable to sense Al within himself.

Three years before they had discovered the truth about philosopher’s stones. They swore never to use them, and were back to square one. Three years with almost nothing to show for it.

Then, Hughes was dead and Greed was alive, then dead, then inside Ling and on their side and there is so much going on that Ed barely understands it and he’s been impaled and he can’t sense Al and he hopes his brother is okay and they’re in the capitol and they’re fighting and there’s a man who looks exactly like his dad and Mustang’s blind and suddenly, he’s back at that gate. He has his arm. His connection to his soul. Al’s body is right in front of him.

It had been three-and-a-half years and he was finally where he had wanted to be.

He didn’t know what else to give, so he gave the only thing he had. His alchemy in exchange for Al. It wasn’t exactly fair, but Truth had loved the idea so much it accepted.

* * *

A month after everything, Grumman was in charge, Mustang could see again, and Ed and Al were connected. They were soulmates again.

Al was still learning to walk, and progressing quickly. He could make it all the way around the hospital and back without needing a break. It was still just a matter of giving him enough nutrients for his body to start working properly. To remind it that they were back in the real world.

Al could still use alchemy, though he didn’t use it often. Whether it was out of respect for Ed or because he didn’t want to, Ed didn’t know. He had decided that he would research Xing’s alchemy and use it to help people. When he was fully healed, he was going to Xing with Mei. Ed knew he would be alright.

Ed tried alchemy too many times to count, but nothing worked. He couldn’t even use basic circles any more.

They were back in Resembool. Al liked the fresh air and Ed liked that Al was happy. Ed had been skimming through one of Hohenheim’s surviving notebooks when he realised.

Their soul-mark was an alchemical symbol. It had to be. There was no way it could have been anything else. All soul-marks have a meaning. They aren’t random. If that mark existed for only Ed and Al, then there was a reason for it that only Ed and Al could understand.

Truth bound people together. It is the reason Ed and Al had that mark. Ed knew by now that Truth had taken a liking to them. They were children of Hohenheim the immortal, after all. They were the best alchemists Amestris had ever seen. It had given them hundreds of clues and advantages. Tiny things that brought them closer to their goal. It wasn’t crazy to think it would give them one more.

Carefully, Ed drew his soul-mark on the floor of his bedroom. He pictured both it and the regular circle in his mind. He pressed the centre of the circle, knowing exactly what he wanted to make out of the wood.

He closed his eyes as a foreign, but also familiar, sensation ran through his body, down his arms and into the circle. When he opened his eyes, the circle glowed.


End file.
